Making a pickaroon question?

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Jan 29, 2016
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I have just cut an old axe down to make a pickaroon and it will work fine.
I messed up on the original handle and decided to try a lag bolt sharpened in the messed up handle.
It seems to bounce. I figure there is not enough mass behind it. I am considering a cut down circular saw bade as the pick. Has anyone tried this? Similar to a fiskars.
 
I totally don't understand what you're asking. Can you post a picture - you may need to upload it to a hosting site first.

Pickaroons aren't terribly heavy. But they don't need to be. If the point is bouncing out of the wood then you need to reshape it. Some old timers reshaped the very point of a pickaroon almost the shape of a dog's toenail but not quite as curved.
 
Maybe a thick (>1/4”) saw blade. You’re gonna be whacking, lifting and twisting with it, a thin one just won’t hold up.

I used 5” of a 1/2” steel punch for my spike, and reshaped the tip. It’s not as beaky as another (larger) handmade one I have, but works fine on rounds up to about 30 lbs.

Parker
 
To make sure I have it clear, you have one pickaroon that is working, and making another one with a lag-bolt. I can certainly see that just a single lagbolt would not have enough mass, even if the shape was good. Could you put any sort of steel collar around the shaft to add mass to the end? I've only used a couple, and they were only slightly different, one worked far better, but it wasn't clear why. The poorer performer took a lot of grinding and re-shaping to get to about 80% of the performance of the "good" one.
Shape, weight, wood hardness, and technique are all going to play a part. Making sure that the handle indexes to your hand properly so that you can get direct blows, as well as being able to pull in for more speed right before impact were things I was told were key. No matter how good the head is, if the handle doesn't let you use it right, it'll never get the power to work well.
 
That’s true. My better one is mounted on a 16” framer handle. The other one has a curved hatchet-like handle, about 18-1/2”. I definitely favor the straight one.

Took me awhile to find a good technique, other than just extending my reach which was an improvement. Two things you want: a good “stick”, embedding the beak firmly so it doesn’t pull loose of the wood prematurely, and a good release. My release is a kinda “twist and dip” motion, my neighbor releases much smoother than me with just a twist. All depends on body geometry, I guess.

Parker
 
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